Tax · Daily operations · 8 min read

Corporate-tax workpapers and withholding

Work out corporate tax from the ledger with adjustments and three-person sign-off, and work out and record withholding on payments.

Before you begin

• The features Corporate-tax workpapers and Withholding tax are on in Applications > Tax > Features. If they are off, the menus Tax > Corporate tax and Tax > Withholding are hidden.
• A tax administrator has created and a second administrator has activated the Corporate-tax policy and the Withholding rule you need (Tax > Configuration).

Corporate tax workpaper

A workpaper takes accounting profit from the ledger, applies your adjustments and works out the taxable basis and the tax.

Set up the policy

In Tax > Configuration > Corporate-tax policies a policy holds the Rate % (0 to 100; 0 means a workpaper only, no tax worked out), the Threshold before tax (for example 375,000) and the Allowed adjustments: permanent, temporary, exempt income and loss relief.

Steps: prepare

1. Choose Tax > Corporate tax.
2. Press New.
3. Choose the Corporate-tax policy (or none to show profit only).
4. Type the First day and Last day, for example 2026-01-01 and 2026-12-31.
5. Confirm. The workpaper opens as a draft.
6. Press Edit adjustments and enter them as a JSON list. Each needs a kind, a description, an amount and optionally an account and evidence.
7. Save.

Example adjustment: [{"kind":"permanent","description":"Entertainment 50% disallowed","amount":"20000"}].

Worked example

Posted income 1,000,000 and expense 500,000 in 2026. Policy: 9 % above 375,000.

• Accounting profit 500,000.00. Taxable basis 500,000.00. Tax = (500,000 - 375,000) x 9 % = 11,250.00.
• With a permanent adjustment of +20,000: taxable 520,000.00, tax = (520,000 - 375,000) x 9 % = 13,050.00.
• With a policy rate of 0 or no policy: tax 0.00 and the message 'No rate configured: no tax worked out'.

Review, approve, reopen

1. Person A creates the workpaper.
2. Person B presses Review. The figures are recomputed from the ledger.
3. Person C presses Approve. The workpaper is locked.
4. Reopen returns a workpaper to draft (before approval).

The creator cannot review or approve; the reviewer cannot approve. A reviewed or approved workpaper cannot be edited: 'A reviewed or approved workpaper is not edited. Reopen it first.'

Refusals

Withholding

Withholding works out how much to hold back from a payment to a payee, using a rule with a threshold per period.

Steps

1. Choose Tax > Withholding.
2. Press Work out.
3. Choose the Rule (code), the Payee (code), the Date and the Gross payment. Optionally add a Payment reference.
4. Read the result: accumulated payments, amount subject, amount withheld and net payment.
5. Press Record to save it.

The rule needs Payee class, Threshold per period (default 0), Period (monthly, quarterly, yearly), Rate % and On (payment or invoice).

Worked example

Rule: yearly threshold 50,000 AED, rate 5 %.

The second payment pushes the year to 70,000, so 20,000 is above the threshold and 5 % of that is withheld.

Refusals

Good to know

• Withholding rules and tax groups masters can be created while their features are off; the feature controls the menus and the work-out screens.
• Turning corporate tax off is refused while a workpaper is not approved: '1 workpaper(s) are not approved yet. Approve them first.'